Indiana Night
by Vestal Virgin
Summary: Voyager has returned, but not everyone has an easy time finding home. Chakotay turns to the only person he has left to lean on. 1st person POV.


The shadows deepen with the fading day, and I move from one to the next patch of darkness. I could walk the path where the sun's last rays light the way, but my mood demands some place darker, some place wilder and unconfined.

This woodland is unfamiliar but small enough that I won't get lost. She probably knows every tree and bush, has memorized landmarks that my untrained eyes cannot see - an oddly shaped branch high in a certain tree, or a hillock rounded just so, or the entrance to a fox den where generations of kits have been born and protected. Kathryn Janeway would recognize every detail of this land in which I seem to be floundering.

She's not home, and although her mother expects her soon, I waited an hour, making small talk, before my restlessness drove me out behind the house where Kathryn grew up. I tried not to be rude to Mrs. Janeway, to put on a smile as I told her I wanted to take a walk and see the sunset. I have no idea what I am doing in Indiana, so how could I possibly explain it to her? Retreat is my best option. I should return to my empty apartment, shield out the city lights until I fall asleep for no reason than to escape the solitude, but it took me days to convince myself to come. Now that I have, I can't make myself leave until I see Kathryn and talk to her. I've nowhere else to go.

It sounds odd, doesn't it, that the second-in-command of a starship crew has no one to turn to but his captain. It's not that I think they wouldn't listen or understand, but I have spent the five weeks since _Voyager's _homecoming helping everyone else. I have reunited them with loved ones, found them places to stay or transports to their home worlds, and counseled them on their options for remaining in Starfleet or going civilian. I have patted backs to cheer up crew members, rubbed the shoulders of those who cried when their friends departed, and celebrated at their family lunches and dinners, official banquets and balls.

Even Mortimer Harren spent an hour in my office upset that his parents chose to continue attending a three-week technology conference instead of meeting him on Vico V to welcome him home. I managed to discover that a theoretical mathematics seminar was scheduled to begin two days later in Paris. I made all the arrangements for him to attend, contacted the event organizer and asked her to take Mortimer under her wing, and then sent him off to pack. He gave me the only real smile I've ever seen from the young man as he thanked me and shook my hand. Two weeks later, I received a communique that he'd made the right connections and now works at the Institute of Cosmology, whose requirements had been the reason he joined _Voyager _over seven years ago. I'm happy for him.

That's why I have nowhere to go and no one to talk to but Kathryn. Everyone is finally settling down and reuniting with lost friends and loved ones. I'm the one left in the dark wondering what the hell I'm supposed to do now. I can't let my crew see that their stalwart commander spent the last of his strength on them.

There is one problem burdening me more than any other. I miss Kathryn. We've seen each other at functions, talked over the comm about our crew, and discussed the debriefings we endured our first days back. It's not the same as sharing meals, or stories over a cup of coffee, or simply sitting next to each other on the bridge, close enough to touch although we rarely did so. She has spent the time being summoned from one Starfleet department to another, attempting to explain the modifications made to her ship, the log entries and missions, and the teraquads of data collected and catalogued. I am certain my task has been the easier despite its emotional toll. Now, I'm forced to admit that I don't know how to get by without her.

Nightfall brings silence to the woods, and I find an aged tree stump on which to sit. The cold air times my breathing in white puffs, and patches of unmelted snow dot the ground around me. The branches above me are mostly bare with a few brown, shriveled leaves stubbornly clinging to the bark. I feel much like those leaves, like one more breeze could carry me away from everything that sustains me.

Over the last weeks, I cannot count the times I have told someone that we are finally home, free to resume a normal Alpha Quadrant life. It is laughable, really. _Voyager_ was my home, my family, and my life. The place where I grew up no longer exists. My sister is married with two children and living on Bajor. I was never close enough to my cousin here on Earth to want to live near him. I've talked to him, and spent a few days with Sekaya when she received word of our return and came to see me. My Maquis companions are either dead, or scattered throughout the quadrant and deliberately difficult to locate. Any friends I previously had in Starfleet abandoned me when I resigned to become a resistance fighter.

My friends, my family, are the people I've just helped to reconnect with others. They need time to reclaim something of their old lives and build new ones without me intruding. I sent them all on their way, like a proud father watching his children leave the nest, until only I am left. I could let them go because it is the best thing for them. Kathryn is another matter entirely.

My cheeks burn with the cold, and the end of my nose is going numb. As much as I would love to stay here, hidden in the wild shadows, I need to return to the house and warm up. I pick my way through the trees by walking toward the light on Mrs. Janeway's back porch.

When I exit the woods, an outline appears halfway between that light and me. I squint in the darkness, attempting to focus across the distance, thinking that Mrs. Janeway has come to look for me. I take a step closer, the figure begins to run, and my heart stops in my chest.

Kathryn is home. She's come back and is sprinting toward me, the hood of her white coat billowing behind her and her feet seeming to float over the ground she must know so well. My vision sees a flash of a young girl with a red ponytail and sun-kissed freckles, running full tilt in an Indiana summer and laughing. I can't move, can't even breathe, until she leaps over the last meter into my arms and mutters my name against my shoulder.

I hold onto her as though my life depends on never letting go. Maybe it does, because my heart beats again, my cheeks no longer feel the cold, and my nose warms when I nuzzle under her silky hair. Her lips are pressed to my neck, and she has grabbed fistfuls of my black coat over my back, pulling me tighter and tighter to her as though at any second, she will climb my body. That's when it hits me that she has been waiting.

Kathryn has put everyone's needs before her own as she did on the ship. She has waited for the crew to find their way, for Starfleet to finish their celebrations and official debriefings, and for me to seek her out when freed of my self-imposed obligations to our people. A great weight lifts from my shoulders when I whisper, "I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you, too, Chakotay." She releases my coat and holds my face between her delicate hands, her eyes searching mine. "You're here."

"There is nowhere else I want to be." In the winter night, I lower my lips to hers for the first time, and it is everything I have dreamed it would be. She is soft, yielding, and passionate, opening to the tip of my tongue and playfully twining hers over it. We sway together, pressing against one another and sliding our hands over every inch of each other within reach. She trembles in my arms, not from the cold but from the tingling heat between us. When at last we break the kiss, she grips my shoulders and sighs one word, "Stay."

"Yes." I can't help wondering what her mother will think, but nothing will separate me from this woman tonight, or ever if I am to claim the life I have so often imagined. She laces her fingers through mine, and we begin the trek back to the house. The newly risen half-moon provides only a dim glow, but Kathryn's footsteps are steady and sure as she leads me home.


End file.
